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Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has been recognized as a frequently occurring oral malignant tumor. Pyroptosis plays an extremely important role in the occurrence and development of cancer, but the role of pyroptosis in OSCC remains unclear. Methods: OSCC-related data were obtained from the TCGA and GEO databases. A PSscore risk model was constructed through LASSO regression analysis. The GEO database was utilized as the validation set of the model. The "ESTIMATE" and "CIBERSORT" algorithms were utilized to additionally evaluate the relationship between the immune cell score and PSscore. TIDE and IPS algorithms were used to assess patient response to immunotherapy. In addition, Western blot analysis and MTT assay was used to further validate key genes. Results: Comprehensive bioinformatics analysis showed that a low-PSscore had a significant survival advantage, richer immune cell infiltration, more active immune-related pathways, higher TME scores, and lower tumor purity. The results of TIDE and IPS analysis indicated that the high-PSscore group had higher immune escape potential and was less sensitive to immunotherapy. In contrast, the low-PSscore group patients might be more sensitive to PD1 and CTLA4 + PD1 immunotherapy. Univariate and multivariate COX results indicated that PSscore was an independent prognostic factor in OSCC patients. Another important finding is that BAK1 is a potential target of OSCC and is related to the Nod-like receptor signaling pathway. Knockdown of BAK1 can significantly reduce the proliferation of OSCC cells. Conclusion: The PSscore model could be utilized as a powerful prognostic indicator and can help in the development of new immunotherapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The free vibration of rotating bending-torsional composite Timoshenko beams (CTBs) with arbitrary boundary conditions is analyzed. The composite material coupled rigidity, Coriolis effects and the separation of the cross-section's mass and shear centers are considered and they will cause the bending-torsion coupled vibration of the beam. Based on the Hamilton's principle, the governing partial differential matrix equation of motion of the beam are formulated with variable coefficients. Those equations containing variable coefficients are expressed in a special matrix form in terms of the flexural translation, rotation of cross section and torsional rotation of the beam. The differential transform matrix method (DTMM), which is an improved approach from the traditional differential transform method (DTM), is proposed to deal with the governing matrix equation with corresponding boundary conditions. The mode shapes and natural frequencies of the beam are obtained. Cantilevers are calculated as examples to verify the present theory and investigate the dynamic characteristics of the rotating CTB. The present results are consistent with those reported in the literature and those calculated from COMSOL. The influence of the composite material rigidity, rotation speed, hub radius and axial load on the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the beam are studied, while the frequency veering and mode shift phenomena are observed. Furthermore, the beam's critical buckling loads corresponding to the axial load are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Since the end of 2019, dialysis patients have been at risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as well as other potential complications. Hence, we sought to describe the clinical characteristics of dialysis patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Methods: We reviewed clinical outcomes, which consisted of clinical data extracted from the medical records of 695 registered dialysis patients at the Dialysis Center of Central Hospital of Wuhan from January 13th, 2020, to February 29th, 2020, and performed statistical analysis. According to the results, there were 447, 227 and 21 hemodialysis (HD), peritoneal dialysis (PD) and combined HD and PD (HD&PD) cases, respectively. Results: During the outbreak of COVID-19, 36 dialysis patients were infected by SARS-CoV-2. Among those 36 patients, 32 (7.2%) were on HD, and 4 (1.8%) were on PD. When comparing SARS-CoV-2 infection between HD and PD, the relative risk was 4.07 (RR = 4.07, 95% CI 1.46–11.35). We noted a median age of 66 years during the observation period, and the number of male patients was 23 (63.9%). There were 15 fatal cases tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (13 cases on HD and 2 cases on PD). By comparing mortality in the same period of 2018, 2019 and 2020, the all-cause mortality of hemodialysis patients was significantly higher in 2020 (4.89%) than in either 2018 (2.55%) or 2019 (1.97%). There was no significant difference in mortality from all causes excluding COVID-19, during the same period among the 3-year period. However, during the COVID-19 outbreak, the mortality from all causes excluding COVID-19 was 2.73%, which was slightly higher than that from COVID-19 (2.16%). Conclusions: Although COVID-19 seriously threatens the health of people with uremia, deaths from all causes excluding COVID-19 during the epidemic cannot be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summer fallow is very common in dryland agriculture to conserve rainwater and replenish soil fertility. However, bare land and intensive rainfall during summer fallow might result in a potential risk of N loss. We used a 15N-labelling method to study the loss of residual N fertilizer during summer fallow and its use by next wheat in the Loess Plateau. Our study included three treatments: without the addition of N (N0W0), with the addition of 50 kg ha−1 N (NW0) and with the addition of 50 kg ha−1 N plus 35% more water (NW). The N fertilizer (K15NO3) in solution was injected into the soil at a depth of 35 cm of the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) columns in field. The fates of 15N were followed after summer fallow and in the next season’s wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). The summer fallow of this study was a dry summer; however, fertilizer 15N was still leached down to 40-cm depth for the NW0 treatment; and for the NW treatment, the peak of 15N fertilizer was approximately 20 cm deeper. After summer fallow, the loss of the initially applied 15N was 26% in the soil profile for the NW0 treatment; and for the NW treatment, it increased to 37%. Soil 15N abundance in 0-20 cm of the NW0 and NW treatments was higher than the N0W0 treatment, indicating the upward movement of 15N in summer fallow. After the next wheat harvest, 15N uptake by wheat in the NW treatment decreased from 21.0 to 18.6% compared to the NW0 treatment. High rainfall during summer fallow increased residual N loss during summer fallow but decreased its use by the next crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is conducted to investigate stability and control problems within a finite-time interval for a 2D continuous-discrete system in Roesser model. The concepts of finite-time stability (FTS) and finite-time boundedness (FTB) are naturally extended to the 2D continuous-discrete system. Recursive relations between system states are first obtained, then sufficient conditions for FTS and FTB in the system are derived, and a finite-time controller is supplied to the system. Sufficient conditions for finite-time stabilization are also provided for the linear repetitive process. Examples of metal rolling operation are presented to illustrate the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the problem of stability and robust stabilization of two-dimensional (2-D) continuous-discrete systems in Roesser model. Based on Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov (KYP) lemma, sufficient conditions of stability of the systems are proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Moreover, combining generalized KYP lemma with frequency-partitioning idea, the conservativeness of the stability conditions may be further reduced. Robust stabilization using state feedback is studied as well and stabilizing feedback gain matrices are constructed based on the solutions of certain LMIs. In addition, the stability analysis of a class of differential repetitive processes, a special case of 2-D continuous-discrete systems in Roesser model, can adopt the results in this manuscript. Numerical examples are presented to verify the effectiveness of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new stick text segmentation method based on the sub connected area analysis is introduced in this paper. The foundation of this method is the sub connected area representation of text image that can represent all connected areas in an image efficiently. This method consists mainly of four steps: sub connected area classification, finding initial boundary following point, finding optimal segmentation point by boundary tracing, and text segmentation. This method is similar to boundary analysis method but is more efficient than boundary analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]